Green Depot opening shows that consumers are ready

The Green Depot (Home Depot's eco-friendly cousin) has opened its first bricks and mortar location in New York, based on the success of the internet company greendepot.com. The signs are all pointing to the fact that consumer interest is high enough to warrant it AND they are no longer satisfied by the eco-options given at normal retailers.

Read the article posted by the Wall Street Journal daily blog

Green Depot plans several other locations on the East Coast, but currently no plans are in the works for a California store.

battery solutions

We all know that it's bad to throw used batteries away, but do you know what to do with them instead? I currently have a pile of them, rechargeable and not, sitting with the rest of the e-waste that I have collected over the last year. Every once in awhile I see e-waste drives around Orange County but sometimes you just want the stuff gone-now!

So, here's a company I discovered at the Go Green Expo last week. For $24 they send you an iRecycle Kit postage paid box that you fill up with your e-waste and ship back to them. It holds approximately 12 lbs worth of stuff (you can't even ship a regular box that cheap anymore...) and they take most batteries and small electronics like cell phones, etc.

I have heard horror stories about how batteries get shipped off to third world countries and are disassembled there and then dumped into their landfills. Double whammy here folks! These people are exposed to the mercury and then get to drink it in their water later on. Yikes.

Well these guys aren't okay with that and their goal is to safely recycle the products here (under strict regulations) so they can re-use the precious metals and properly contain the toxic materials. And just in case you need to know more about the big bad world of batteries, here is the website. Please go check them out. And recycle your stuff!

www.batteryrecycling.com